66 
CHEAP LIVING. 
been travelled too often. I turn to my journal and select 
the few following extracts : — 
The ship’s sides and decks are so hot that one almost 
melts in his bunk, and to sleep on deck in the dew is said 
to be certain sickness.” 
Bliss, the third lieutenant of the Hancock, and myself 
had determined to go on shore. 
“We had at our disposal one of that vessel’s boats, 
over -which was spread a fine awning, and which was 
pulled by Malay boatmen hired by Captain Rodgers /?’om 
the Govemmeni for the small consideration of one rupee 
each a day. A rupee is equal to from thirty-six to forty 
cents, and each man must pay fifteen of those cents to 
the authorities for being so kind as to hire him out. 
Thus he has only some twenty-two or three left as pay- 
ment for pulling about all day under a broiling sun. 
This, however, is good i)ay ; for ten doits — three cents — 
will give him food for a day, and then he has the rest to 
gamble with. They are the greatest gamblers I ever 
saw, except, perhaps, the Chinese. 
“After pulling a mile or more from the ship, we 
reached the mouth of a canal, up w^hich we passed to 
the landing. We were told that it was a most danger- 
ous thing to cross the bar at its mouth when it was 
blowing fresh, as there was always a bad sea breaking, 
and hundreds of sharks and crocodiles ready to pick up 
the inmates of a swamped boat. 
“These animals, it seems, abound in great numbers 
about the bar, — the sharks outside and the crocodiles in- 
side, — and feed upon the refuse of the city as it is swept 
down to them by a two-knot current, sometimes making 
